Well Done Essex Young Ringers!

Competitions

The 2026 Ringing World National Youth Contest took place in Nottingham.

The Essex Young Eagles entered 3 teams in the competition.

They were placed joint 4th in the Basic Call Change Competition, joint 5th in the Call Change Competition, and FIRST in the 6-Bell Method Ringing Competition out of sixteen teams! Well done Essex Eagles.

Moreover, 3 young ringers from Hornchurch were involved in 2 of the teams:

Ellen Hayward conducted the Basic Call Change team that came 4th. Carys Hayward conducted the Call Change team that came 5th and Jamie Slack was also part of this team.

The photos show the Hornchurch ringers that took part.

Carys and Jamie with the Call Change Team
Ellen with the Basic Call Change Team

St Andrew’s Bell Ringers Come First

Competitions, Essex Association,

On Saturday 13th June 2026, the Annual District Striking Competition for bell ringers was held at Chigwell Row church. This was a method striking competition and teams were required to ring 240 changes of their chosen method, which took about nine minutes.

During this time, the judges assessed the accuracy of the striking and teams were given ‘faults’ for any errors in their ringing.

St Andrew’s entered a team, young and old, who rang well together and accrued a low score of just 42 faults.

This was good enough to achieve first place ahead of West Ham in second place with 64 faults.

The team in the order they rang is shown in the photo below:

L – R: Ellen, Michelle, Carys, Marianne, Clive and Mark with the judges behind.

The other photo shows Carys & Ellen having just received the trophy from the judges.

Well done to the St Andrew’s team!

Bell Ringers Win Call Change Competition

Competitions, Ringing Outings

On Saturday 27th September, St Andrew’s bell ringers took part in the District Call Change Competition at Walthamstow, St Saviours.

This is an annual event where teams ring for five to eight minutes and are judged on the accuracy of their striking.

There were 5 bands taking part this year. Our team of six rang very well and accrued a low score of 53 faults for our competition piece.

This was good enough to win the competition for the fourth consecutive year!

Congratulations to our winning team shown in the photo below. Those taking part were Clive, Michelle, Marianne (absent in photo), Charles, Ethan & Mark.

The other photo shows Mark Lendon receiving the trophy from the judges.

Hornchurch Bell Ringers Finish 3rd

Competitions, Essex Association,

On Saturday 12th July, St Andrew’s bell ringers took part in the Essex Association striking competition finals at Sandon, near Chelmsford.

There were ten teams from all over Essex taking part and the standard of ringing was very high as it is every year.

Each team rang 240 changes of their chosen method which took about seven minutes. We were the first to ring and were pleased with our performance containing very few errors. The judges commented later that we ‘made a confident start’ and ‘set the tone for the day.’

We were delighted to finish in third place which is our best achievement in this event for about 30 years.

Our relatively inexperienced team rang as follows:

Marianne Hayward – Treble

Carys Hayward  – 2

Michelle Stephenson – 3

Nick Allen – 4

Clive Stephenson – 5

Mark Lendon – Tenor

Congratulations to all our ringers especially Carys Hayward who took part in this competition for the very first time, aged 15.

The photograph below shows our ringers in the order they rang.

Image of the six ringers outside the church.

Bell Ringers Win Call Change Competition

Competitions,

On Saturday 21st September 2024, St Andrew’s bell ringers entered a team in the District Call Change Competition at Leytonstone church.

Each team of six ringers had three minutes practise to get used to a different set of bells.

This was followed by five to eight minutes of competition ringing. The order of the bells was changed regularly and the accuracy of the striking assessed by two judges sitting in the churchyard.

Our team rang very well and was placed first out of the six teams that took part.

 Ethan receives the trophy from the judges
The winning team of Clive, Jane, Michelle,
James, Ethan & Mark outside Leytonstone church

Bell Ringers Perform Well In Essex Striking Competition

Competitions,

On Saturday 29th June 2024, St Andrew’s bell ringers represented our district in the Essex Striking Competition at Great Easton.

We were competing against ten other teams from all over Essex. Each team rang 240 changes of their chosen method and were judged on the accuracy of their striking.

Our team rang well and finished in 6th place out of 11 teams with an accuracy score of 75%.

Well done to our successful team of James, Michelle, Marianne, Nick, Clive & Mark shown in the photo below.

Bell Ringers Win Call Change Competition

Competitions,

On Saturday 23rd September 2023, our team of 6 bell ringers travelled to Loughton church for the annual district call change competition.

We were drawn to ring first and, after some initial nerves, settled into about 5 minutes ofconfident ringing.

There were 4 other teams, all of us judged on the evenness of our ringing whilst the conductor changed the order of the bells.

At the end of the competition, Hornchurch were declared the winning team, having scored the fewest number of faults (errors).

The full results were as follows:

  • 5th place: Walthamstow, St Mary: 62.5 faults
  • 4th place: Walthamstow, St Saviour: 53 faults
  • 3rd place: Loughton: 49 faults
  • 2nd place: Epping: 45.5 faults
  • 1st place: Hornchurch: 16.5 faults

Well done to all those who took part.

The winning team: Clive Stephenson, Jane Harper, Michelle Stephenson, Ethan Musham, Mark Lendon and James Riley
Jane collects the winning trophy

Bell Ringers Striking Competition Success

Competitions,

On Saturday 10th June 2023, St Andrew’s bell ringers entered a team into the SW Essex Striking Competition heats at Dagenham.

We rang for about seven or eight minutes and were judged on the accuracy of our ringing.

We rang well and finished in 2nd place behind West Ham but ahead of Walthamstow, St Mary who came 3rd.

Congratulations to our band of ringers, who are shown in the photograph below.

Those taking part were (L-R in the photograph):

  1. Mark Lendon
  2. Julie Bloomfield
  3. Michelle Stephenson
  4. Ethan Musham
  5. Clive Stephenson
  6. James Riley